Ping Health Monitor

Overview

This article covers the specific configuration for ping health monitor type. Refer Overview of Health Monitors article for general monitor information, implementation, and other monitor types.

Avi Vantage Service Engines will send an ICMP ping to the server. This monitor type is generally very fast and lightweight for both Service Engines and the server. However, it is not uncommon for ping to drop a packet and fail. Ensure that Failed Checks field is set to at least 2. This monitor type does not test the health of the application, so it generally works best when applied in conjunction with an application specific monitor for the Pool.

Note: ICMP rate limiters can prevent Service Engines from aggressively checking the server health via ping. This may be caused by an intermediate network firewall or rate limits set up on the server itself.

Creating a Ping Health Monitor

To create a ping monitor,

1. From the NSX Advanced Load Balancer UI, navigate to Templates > Profiles > Health Monitors.

2. Click on Create to open the CREATE HEALTH MONITOR screen.

3. Enter a unique Name for the monitor and Description.

4. Select Ping as the Type.

5. Select the option Is Federated? to replicate the object across the GSLB federation. When this option is not selected, the object is visible within the Controller-cluster and its associated SEs. This option is enabled only when GSLB is activated. A federated health monitor is used for GSLB purposes while it is not applicable for a regular (non-federated) health-monitor. A GSLB service cannot be associated with a regular (non-federated) health monitor, because GSLB service is a federated object, while the health monitor is not. Conversely, a pool cannot be associated with a federated health monitor because the pool is not a federated object.

6. Enter the Send Interval value (in seconds). This value determines how frequently the health monitor initiates an active check of a server. The frequency range is 1 to 3600.

7. Enter the Receive Timeout value (in seconds). The server must return a valid response to the health monitor within the specified time limit. The receive timeout range is 1 to 2400 or the send interval value minus 1 second.
   Note: If the status of a server continually flips between up and down, this may indicate that the receive timeout is too aggressive for the server.

8. Enter Successful Checks. This is the number of consecutive health checks that must succeed before NSX Advanced Load Balancer marks a down server as up. The minimum is 1, and the maximum is 50.

9. Enter Failed Checks. This is the number of consecutive health checks that on failing, NSX Advanced Load Balancer marks a server as down. The minimum is 1, and the maximum is 50.
   

   

10. Under the Role-Based Access Control (RBAC) section, configure labels to control access to the health monitor based on the defined roles:
    1. Click Add.
    2. Enter the Key and the corresponding values.

    

11. Click Save.

See Granular RBAC for more information.